Stanford University has decided to make a number of its computer-related courses available for free online. The initiative is being called the Stanford Engineering Everywhere portal and has begun by offering ten courses that actually mirror the courses taught in Stanford’s School of Engineerring.

The first ten courses on offer include:

Introduction to Computer Science

Programming Methodology

Programming Abstractions

Programming Paradigms

Introduction to Robotoics

Introduction to Robotics

Natural Language Processing

Machine Learning

Linear Systems and Optimization

The Fourier Transform and its Applications

Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems

Convex Optimization I

Convex Optimization II

Materials provided for each course include lecture videos, slides, reading lists and the handouts used on the University version of the course. These will also be supplemented with the course quizzes, homework assignments and examinations.

Further courses are planned, but their introduction will depend on how successful these first ten are.

Matthew’s Opinion
I really appreciate it when Universities decide to offer up content like this for free. It forms a solid pool of information that people who want to learn can rely upon as a starting point and ongoing aid.

MIT are doing a similar thing with their MITOpenCourseware portal, which has a lot more courses on offer. The more the better though, as learning a subject is usually easier if you have multiple references available and you can’t get much better than the teaching materials from these Universities.

I had a quick look at the resources and they are very well done. The streaming versions of the videos are good quality and allow you to jump to specific areas within the lecture course. The zipped resources are big, but contain everything you need to follow the course. Check them out if any of the subjects take your interest.